For forty-eight years, Norman Thayer and his energetic wife, Ethel, have been spending the summers at their lakeside home on Golden Pond, fishing and watching for loons. This year, their divorced daughter, Chelsea, her new fiancé and his teenage son make an unexpected visit. When Norman develops an unlikely friendship with the boy, it reinvigorates the grumpy retired professor and highlights the rocky relationship between this father and his now middle-aged daughter. As the summer days grow short, there is still time for their family to heal, and to rediscover the joys in everyday life.